Photography installation KINA captures a henna ceremony she attended back home in Turkey for a distant family relative. Traditionally held prior to weddings in Muslim and Hindu cultures, the ritual of painting the bride’s hand with henna symbolizes new beginnings as well as loss of virginity, which Korkmaz emphasizes with the color red repeating throughout the images. The artist’s distant position towards the ceremony—as a remote relative and an image maker behind her lens—disrupts the intimacy of the gathering where traditionally only women are invited. In one image, a family friend appears inside a burning red dress that reveals a tattoo of two women tightly hugging each other, paying a secret homage to her closeted relationships with same sex. Korkmaz positions her photographs inside life-size boxes with peeping windows that allow just enough vision to view the images, contributing to the works’ subversive approach to intimacy.
KINA 2019, Plywood, Hunter Green, Plexiglass, 73”x 30”
